NYC passes bills to avoid more blizzard blunders

The City Council on Wednesday passed legislation that members said would prevent a repeat of mistakes like those made during a day-after-Christmas blizzard that shut down large swaths of the city and reverberated far past the holiday, chipping away at Mayor Michael Bloomberg's approval rating and continuing to spark ire among residents and local officials.

"Response to the December blizzard, let me be clear, was unacceptable," City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said. "We're taking these aggressive actions to make sure that something like this never happens again."

The Dec. 26 blizzard dumped 20 inches of snow in some parts of the city, and residents heavily criticized Bloomberg for how long it took to clean up.

The package of bills passed Wednesday would require city officials to establish rules determining when they activate emergency operations and when they ask for help from the state and other jurisdictions. Under the measures, the city also would need to notify the public of disruptions to public services, make a plan for how to handle high 311 information hotline call volume in emergencies and publish an annual evaluation of the city's snow response.

After initially objecting to earlier versions of the legislation, Bloomberg's office said Wednesday he would support the bills. Quinn, a Democrat, told reporters that was a surprise to her and she had anticipated having to override a mayoral veto.

The mayor, an independent, has borne the brunt of the political fallout from the response to the blizzard, which left parts of the city snowbound for days and stranded ambulances and buses. The city's 911 system backed up, some residents were unable to get medical care, trash didn't get picked up and in some neighborhoods mail couldn't be delivered.

The mayor's approval rating fell to 37 percent in the days after the Christmas weekend blizzard, from 50 percent a few months earlier, and hasn't recovered. His role in the blizzard response has been mocked in TV ads created by the teachers' union, which has been at odds with him as he pushes for reductions to pensions and seniority protections. He has acknowledged the city's handling of the blizzard was poor, inadequate and unacceptable.

Bloomberg spokesman Jason Post said the mayor's decision to support the legislation had nothing to do with public opinion but was based on changes to the bills that had addressed administration concerns that they would duplicate city efforts and limit the flexibility of emergency management officials. But Quinn characterized the changes from the earlier bills as insignificant.

Among the City Council measures that were abandoned is one that would have required the suspension of parking meters whenever rules about parking on alternate sides of streets to allow for cleaning are suspended because of snow. The final legislation also drops demands that the Office of Emergency Management name commissioners in each of the city's five boroughs to avoid leaving any part of the city out in the cold.

The bills passed Wednesday would require the Department of Sanitation to make public a list of which streets are considered main thoroughfares and which ones will be given lower priority. The agency will be required to improve snow removal at street corners and assist civic organizations in establishing a registry of volunteers willing to help frail homeowners with shoveling.